About

Helen Terry is an artist who works with textiles.  Her work revolves around mark-making with dye and stitch, with a preference for processes that leave room for accidental and chance effects.  Currently this includes combinations of screen printing, mono-printing and direct application of dye onto antique cloth.  She works on both sides, allowing faint marks to show through.  The dyed cloth is then cut, torn, layered and stitched to develop relationships between marks and textures.  

Helen’s work explores themes of ambiguity and change and refers to the landscape of coastal marshes and estuaries where edges and boundaries are uncertain, never quite fixed as one thing or another.  Recent work is influenced by the archaeology of the Essex coast, particularly the mudflats around Bradwell where traces of medieval to prehistoric activity periodically emerge from the mud at low tide only to be eroded and re-submerged as the waters rise and fall.  A recurring theme is the way we perceive and interpret fragments of information, instinctively looking for meaning or resemblance to something we recognise in the effort to make sense of things.  

Helen grew up on farms in Hertfordshire and has spent most of her life in East Anglia, dividing her time between the Essex estuaries and the Norfolk coast and marshes.  She has a degree in Ancient & Medieval History from the University of London and has developed her art practice through informal and independent study. 

Exhibitions: 

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk. Helen Terry / Barbara Gittings. 11 September to 6 October 2021

Pond Gallery, Snape Maltings, Snape, near Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP17 1SP. Tracing Shadows (with Sally Tyrie). 4 to 9 September 2020

Fenners Gallery & Project Space, 7 Openshaw Way, Letchworth, SG6 3EN. Illuminations (with Sally Tyrie). 19 to 28 April 2019

Gallery 57, Arundel, West Sussex.  A contour, a curve, the lie of the land.  19 May to 27 August 2018

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk.  Spring Mixed Exhibition.  19 May to 13 June 2018. 

Babylon Gallery, Ely, Cambridgeshire.  Reflections & Revelations.  Helen Terry & Sally Tyrie 11 to 22 April 2018

Wicken Fen Nature Reserve, Lode Lane, Wicken, Cambridgeshire.  Hidden (with Sally Tyrie).  30 March to 25 April 2018

Gallery 57, Arundel, West Sussex.  Gaze, Glimpse: A Look at Landscape.  July 2017

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk.  Spring Exhibition: Stephanie Stow / Elaine Cox / Helen Terry, 13 February to 9 March 2016.

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk.  Christmas Exhibition Part Two, 5 December 2015 to 13 January 2016

Art Van Go, Knebworth, Hertfordshire.  2 to 19 September 2015

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk.  Early Summer Exhibition, 23 May to 17 June 2015

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk.  Early Summer Exhibition, 7 June to 2 July 2014

Bircham Gallery, Holt, Norfolk.   Newcomers Exhibition  8 March to 2 April 2014.

Faux Gallery, Leigh on Sea, Essex.  May 2013.